Darwin believed that all living creatures were descended from just a few or one
original species. Man and the apes had a common ancestor, and for all the
imperfections of the geological record, there can be no doubt that in terms of skeletal
structure, organs, senses, reproduction, digestive processes etc., all mammals have a
vast array of common features. The inference that they are variations on a theme
seems inescapable, and from this we can extrapolate all kinds of fascinating insights
into the nature both of animals and of man.

One of the most important has to be the fact that the distinction I have just drawn is
false. Man is an animal. It is therefore a mark of intellectual arrogance to denigrate
the instincts, feelings, sensitivities and capabilities of animals as being somehow
different from those of man. Mammals (I shall confine myself to these, as they are our
closest relatives) can only survive by reproducing, caring for their young, feeling and
responding to pain, finding food and drink, protecting themselves against their
enemies, etc. If they are “programmed” to do this, then so are we. (We shall not delve
here into the question of who devised the “programme”.) Our means of survival are
precisely the same as those of other animals, and the idea that animals feel what we
feel is not an anthropomorphic projection, because it is the other way round: in the
evolutionary order of things, they came before us, i.e. we inherited the programme
from them, and so we feel what they feel. An elephant mother loves its baby, nurtures,
suckles, protects it just as we do, and if the baby dies, the elephant grieves. There are
countless examples of animals expressing emotion, and you don’t even have to be a
zoologist or a wildlife observer to experience this. Anyone who has lived with a cat or
dog will know that it has feelings.

Another vital element in survival is communication. We pride ourselves on the
complexities and range of our languages, but again these are only extensions of
animal language. Scientists have observed that different animal sounds have different
meanings, and it is known that there are sounds we cannot hear, and some may travel
over vast distances. Our senses in many areas are inferior to those of other animals,
and it may even be that our superior brain power has adversely affected those senses,
as we do not rely on them so much. Natural selection may emphasize that which is
advantageous, but perhaps it also creates a balance whereby one feature is enhanced
and another shrinks. A heightened sense of smell may accompany a diminution of
vision (or conversely, a diminution of vision may be compensated for by a heightened
sense of smell).

The point I am making here is that we have lost sight of our animal origins, and
because we have done so, we have misunderstood a huge area of our own behaviour.
Before we discuss the animal nature of man, however, we should consider human
influence on other animals.

Knowing as we do that they are our fellow creatures, and share so many of our
traits, we should not assume that their suffering is any different. They cannot describe
their feelings in our language, but a cry of agony is the same in any language, human
or animal. To inflict pain on an animal is in principle no different from inflicting pain
on a human, and anyone who uses the excuse that they are different from us is merely
one step away from the most appalling crimes in human history: Europeans enslaved
Africans; Hitler murdered Jews; Sunnis and Shias, Tutsis and Hutus, Israelis and
Palestinians slaughter one another with the same excuse. Difference is no justification
for cruelty or destruction.

This is clearly an argument in support of the animal rights movement, but it needs to
be tempered. Even though there can be no excuse for deliberately inflicting suffering
on animals, this is not a reason to reverse processes that appear to be natural, and it
most certainly is not a defence of violence to prevent violence. For an animal rights
supporter to go round killing medical scientists is equivalent to a member of the Zebra
Protection Society shooting lions. If we use animals for meat or for vital research, for
instance in combating disease, then that is part of the whole evolutionary pattern by
means of which survival depends on advantage. But on the other hand (agnostics
cannot help waving the other hand), we must impose limits on our advantage if we are
to maintain it. By over-exploiting or killing off other species, we will ultimately
deprive ourselves not only of our own food sources, but also of the biodiversity and
the ecological benefits that those species bring to our planet.

As far as our own animal nature is concerned, so caught up are we in our selfawareness
that we forget what we are. It is a similar process to that by which we build
streets and houses to form a city, and then forget that underneath is a layer of earth,
and if we once more removed the streets and houses, there would once more be earth.
We cover up nature, and we cover up ourselves. This is not to say that we do not
differ from other animals, but until we recognize the common points, we shall never
attain a proportionate view of ourselves or of them.